The Minnesota Twins brought back a familiar face on Sunday as they look for a solution to their outfield injury woes.
The Minnesota Twins are starting to feel an injury crunch in the outfield. With Byron Buxton already on the injured list and Max Kepler going in for an MRI on his shoulder on Monday, the Twins are starting to run out of bodies to use in the outfield and the front office has begun to search all avenues just to try and fix the issue.
On Sunday, the Twins made one attempt to solve the problem, as they brought back outfielder Ryan LaMarre via trade with the Atlanta Braves. The trade could be made after the July 31 deadline as LaMarre has not been on a 40-man roster this season and should at least provide some relief until some of the Twins’ regulars get healthy.
If the name sounds familiar, that’s because LaMarre spent the opening months of the 2018 season with the Twins. In 43 games for Minnesota, the now 30-year old put up an average of .263 and drove in eight RBI, but didn’t have much value outside of that thanks to a .313 slugging percentage and .621 OPS.
While his offensive numbers in the majors weren’t spectacular, LaMarre has had a solid season in the Braves system at Triple-A Gwinnett, hitting .311 with nine home runs and 53 RBI in 112 games. That performance and the familiarity with the Twins organization are two things that probably led him back to Minnesota.
As it stands, LaMarre’s best contribution to the Twins would be defensively as Minnesota has been forced to use infielders such as Marwin Gonzalez and Luis Arraez in the outfield in the wake of all of the injuries over the past couple weeks. The necessity was shown on Sunday, when LaMarre struck out in a pinch-hitting appearance in Sunday’s 5-2 loss to the Cleveland Indians.